Anxiety: The Missing Stage of Grief

A Revolutionary Approach to Understanding and Healing the Impact of Loss

By: Claire Bidwell Smith

Narrated by: Claire Bidwell Smith

With this groundbreaking book, discover the critical connections between anxiety and grief—and learn practical strategies for healing, based on the Kübler-Ross stages model.

If you're suffering from anxiety but not sure why, or if you're struggling with loss and looking for solace, Anxiety: The Missing Stage of Grief offers help and answers. As grief expert Claire Bidwell Smith discovered in her own life—and in her practice with her therapy clients—significant loss and unresolved grief are primary underpinnings of anxiety.

Using research and real life stories, Smith breaks down the physiology of anxiety, providing a concrete explanation that will help you heal. Starting with the basics questions—“What is anxiety?” and “What is grief?” and moving to concrete approaches such as making amends, taking charge, and retraining your brain, Anxiety takes a big step beyond Elisabeth Kübler-Ross's widely accepted five stages to unpack everything from our age-old fears about mortality to the bare vulnerability a loss can make us feel.

With concrete tools and coping strategies for panic attacks, getting a handle on anxious thoughts, and more, Smith bridges these two emotions in a way that is deeply empathetic and profoundly practical.

PLEASE NOTE: When you purchase this title, the accompanying PDF will be available in your Audible Library along with the audio.

©2018 Claire Bidwell Smith (P)2018 Hachette Audio

Critic reviews

"[B]oth soothing and informative...Smith's words are particularly useful for panic attack sufferers...she shows you how you can normalize your panic."—New York Times Book Review

"In Anxiety: The Missing Stage of Grief, Claire Bidwell Smith has found yet another way to powerfully illuminate and deepen our understanding of what it means to grieve. Drawing upon her personal experience with deep loss as well as her many years of working as a grief counselor, Bidwell Smith offers fresh insight into the connection between grief and anxiety. Bidwell Smith's profound compassion for those who've experienced loss has already helped so many people. This trailblazing book will help many more."—Cheryl Strayed, New York Times bestselling author of Wild

"The world of grief—rote with repeated thoughts over what happened, what might have been, and what might be—provides the perfect breeding ground for anxiety. In pinpointing the connections between the two, Claire Bidwell Smith is the warm and wise friend guiding you toward deeper control over your thoughts, instead of your thoughts wielding control over you."—Rebecca Soffer, coauthor of Modern Loss: Candid Conversation about Grief. Beginners Welcome.

so good and helpful

she has a lovely reading voice and this book offers very, very helpful, in-depth content including many different specific suggestions for ways to heal and move forward.

After more than 3 years’ grief process, this book came up at the

Right time for my stage of anxiety. The author has such thorough understanding of grief, and I am happy to find this resonated with what I am going through. Thank you for bringing such difficult although inevitable topic, to help me keep living, wisely.

Beautiful Book on Healing

I love this book! It really helped me better understand my anxiety! I felt so much lighter after finishing the book.

Excellent resource

Just what I’ve been looking for! As a therapist and daughter who lost a parent at a young age, the anxiety about leaving behind my own children has become overwhelming. Many helpful questions, tools, and resources.

love this book

I truly felt this was an amazing way to help me understand more about the anxiety I am feeling related to grief and my mothers passing. I will listen again!

helpful

very helpful and calming. i read it over and over to help me deal grief and anxiety atracks

Greatly Appreciated

I really appreciated the information outlined. I found it very helpful in working through my grief.

What a relief to my years of anxious heart

I have been carrying unknown fear and anxiety for years. Gone through a series of panic attacks in 2018 - when most stressors in life has gone and life supposed to be better than usual.
After treatment of SSRI, therapy, and lots of reading, I accidentally hit upon this book.
All of a sudden, I realized the grief of my mother’s death had never been dealt with, none. No wonder her image popped up here and there whenever I was going through tough or confusing times.
I was the youngest among all her children. I was the one who listened most of her own regret, anger, sorrows, and scares in life - repeated over my entire childhood.
I left home to study at about 3 months after she passed away. I dived into a journey of finding my own life.
While listening to this book, many events and experiences in the past came back to life in me. I was crying and sighing when going through some chapters. I wrote a long letter to my own mom finally. I’ll write more I told her.
I woke up afresh this morning. A big part of myself seems to be found and lifted.
This book helped me find the missing piece of my past and I feel encouraged to go forward and embrace life to love more based on the solid foundation that I finally completed - grief is love and deserves no-rush time to go through. It then became a bedrock for me to lean on while moving forward.

Absolute must

Anxiety has never haunted me until the tragic loss of my 22 year old son. I learned so much about anxiety and how to deal with it. I highly recommend this book .

Must listen too of your struggling

I lost my mom to cancer in 2019 I was by her side through it all and for her last breath. I struggled daily.. even after being prescribed medication and I few therapy sessions (had to stop because I didn’t know it would costs as much as it did) but knew I needed some more help and found this book and I definitely connected with her and some her of clients. Highly recommended! 🤍